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Mbarali fire, 16 June 2019 Iringa, Mbarali

Out · last detection 21 Jun 2019, 10:49 UTC

The fire started on 16 June 2019 in Mbarali, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,231 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 24th largest in Mbeya since 2016 (of 148 with a page). Number 33 in Tanzania in 2019, of 123.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Iringa · 2016Mbarali · 2017Mbarali · 2017Iringa · 2018

Burnt area
7,231ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
16 Jun 2019 – 21 Jun 2019
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
16 Jun
2019
Heat detections
196
in a single hotspot: 79 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Average daily power
212MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Jun21 Jun
21 Jun 2019

How it evolved, day by day

16 Jun 2019 · 38 MW · 8 17 Jun 2019 · 96 MW · 10 18 Jun 2019 · 144 MW · 23 19 Jun 2019 · 196 MW · 51 20 Jun 2019 · 696 MW · 84 21 Jun 2019 · 105 MW · 20
16 Jun 17 Jun 18 Jun 19 Jun 20 Jun 21 Jun

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

30°high
34km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 27 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,921 ha in 2016, 5,039 ha in 2017, 1,558 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,999 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 4.6% of the area of London (72 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Iringa
    4,292 ha reached on 19 Jun
    0.2 %
  2. Mbarali where it started
    2,983 ha reached on 16 Jun
    0.2 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

The weather day by day

ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, the standard reference for past weather, and the Canadian Fire Weather Index (the same system Copernicus uses), computed by WorldFires from that data. Days after the fire run until the first rain.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
16 Jun 29.3 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
17 Jun 30.3 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
18 Jun 30.1 °C 30 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
19 Jun 29.9 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
20 Jun 30.3 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
21 Jun 29.2 °C 31 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
22 Jun after 29.1 °C 31 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
23 Jun after 30.7 °C 30 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
24 Jun after 30.2 °C 31 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
25 Jun after 30.8 °C 30 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
26 Jun after 29.8 °C 31 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
27 Jun after 29.6 °C 31 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
28 Jun after 30.2 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
29 Jun after 29.8 °C 29 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
30 Jun after 29.7 °C 25 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
1 Jul after 30.4 °C 22 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 33

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

Before · 9 Jun 2019
After · 28 Jun 2019

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 196Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.
Date and timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Tanzania ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Mbarali fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 16 June 2019 and 21 June 2019: 6 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 7,231 hectares (72.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Iringa (4,292 ha, 0.2 %); Mbarali (2,983 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.3 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, class High.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Tanzania (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

Where to verify it

A satellite detection is not an official report. Final figures and the fire’s status are published by each country’s emergency service.

Emergency number: 112 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

Does something look wrong on this page?

This page is built from satellite data and official records, and it sometimes gets things wrong: the wrong dates, the wrong town, two fires merged into one, or something that was not a wildfire at all. If you know this fire first-hand (you live nearby, saw it, fought it or reported on it), tell us what really happened and we will check it.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 112.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 196 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

Where this data comes from

The perimeter comes from the Copernicus Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS), which rebuilds it from MODIS and VIIRS heat detections and publishes it under CC BY 4.0. It is not measured on imagery as in Europe, so it is an estimate. Heat detections come from the VIIRS sensors aboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, distributed by NASA FIRMS at 375 m resolution. Municipal boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM2 (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY 3.0 IGO)). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ from each country’s official figure.